1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to an apparatus, a use limiting method, and a storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
There exists a technology for managing upper use limits for respective users of an image forming apparatus that is shared by the users in, for example, an office. In such a technology, for example, the use of an image forming apparatus within a predetermined period by each user is limited up to points given to the user in advance. The points are consumed in proportion to the use of the image forming apparatus.
To perform total upper limit management across multiple image forming apparatuses in an office, points of users are centrally managed by a server computer that can communicate via a network with the image forming apparatuses (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2011-197830).
However, it is difficult to centrally manage points by a server computer in an environment where some image forming apparatuses are not connected to a network for communicating with the server computer.